Former Guj cop Vanzara puts Amit Shah in spot

Issues of 2002 Gujarat riots and “fake encounters” that followed it over a decade ago is the last thing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah would like to see emerge in the current political discourse that too when Modi told the TIME magazine that there should be no place for “imaginary apprehensions” on the rights of minorities in India. However, retired IPS officer DG Vanzara, who is out on bail in two fake encounter cases – Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Ishrat Jahan – seems to have made up his mind to embarrass the duo.

He has apparently issued a veiled threat to Shah, saying all politicians and police officers who were discharged in the encounter cases “will not be allowed to go scot-free if the other accused are not given their due”. In a strong-worded letter to the Gujarat government, Vanzara has sought a “notional” promotion in his case.

Vanzara has strongly objected to the promotion of IPS officer Geetha Johri, who was discharged from the case recently, saying it was “outrightly unlawful and hasty”. “...she has been wrongly promoted by deviating from the standard procedure to save the skin of all accused persons who are discharged from the case by the CBI court, especially that of Amitbhai Shah and PC Pandey (another police officer, accused in Sohrabuddin case),” he said in the letter.

For the Modi government, facing flak on several minorities issues, including anti-minority outbursts by some of its party leaders, the letter could not have come at a worse time.

The former IPS officer, who has spent five years in jail, also rued about “the dirty politics of India” and targets the top-most BJP leadership. He says: “It is the individual interests of the leaders, which is considered supreme, then comes group interests within the party and ultimately comes the party’s interest among many parties; national interest is only talked about just to befool the people. In reality, nobody is bothered about the nation. In short, it can be said that nowadays, national interests are sacrificed on the altar of party interests, party interests are sacrificed on the altar of group interests and group interests are sacrificed on the altar of individual interests. And that is how dirty politics operates everywhere in the country from top to bottom.”

Vanzara had earlier written a letter to the Gujarat government, in which he had described Shah as an “evil influence” on then CM Narendra Modi. He had accused the state government (under Modi and the then Home Minister Amit Shah) of ordering the fake encounters and then deliberately ensuring that police officers remained in prison to save their own skin.